Skip to main content

Scott Keogh Takes Over Top Spot at VW USA from Woebcken

Audi of America head, Scott Keogh is being promoted to president and CEO of the Volkswagen Group of America. He replaces Hinrich Woebcken, who will stay with the company as an advisor.

Keogh joined Audi in 2006 as chief marketing officer. In that position, he led a remarkable turnaround in market awareness and brand strength and that saw the R8 become Iron Man’s car.

In 2012, Keogh took over as president of Audi of America. In that time, Audi went on a record streak of growth, setting personal sales records every month for more than 90 months. That streak was not affected by Dieselgate and continues to this day.

Woebcken, though, has not been without successes of his own at VW. He was the first choice to lead the newly minted North American Region after Dieselgate and oversaw the market introduction of the new Atlas and Tiguan. Both cars have been sales successes and have played no small part in buoying the company’s sales figures after the disappearance of VW’s popular TDI cars and the market-wide slump in sedans and hatchbacks.

“Hinrich J. Woebcken has brought the Volkswagen brand back on track for success in the U.S. and the North American region,” said Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen AG. “Considering the challenging conditions, these achievements deserve my dedicated recognition.”

Diess’s own position within the company may bear some significance here. The CEO recently took over from the not unsuccessful Matthias Mueller. Despite righting the ship after Dieselgate and creating Strategy 2025 (the strategy which sees VW aggressively pursuing mass market EV superiority), Mueller failed to sell off VW’s unnecessary assets and simplify the enormous empire. That is widely seen as the reason for his replacement.

Similarly, despite Woebcken’s successes, VW still occupies a tenuous position in America and signs of accelerating sales are few and far between.

“After the successful comeback of the Volkswagen brand, Scott Keogh, who led Audi to excellence in the U.S., will build upon the momentum and implement the next stage in the growth strategy as we continue to develop Volkswagen into a more relevant player in North America,“ said Diess.

After Keogh leaves Audi on November 1, he will be replaced by Mark Del Rosso. Del Rosso is Audi’s former COO and current CEO of Bentley USA. He will join Audi on December 1. No successor has been named at Bentley.

The decision follows last week’s announcement that VW’s Chief Engineering Officer, Mattias Erb, was headed back to Wolfsburg to be replaced by Wolfgang Demmelbauer-Ebner

The post Scott Keogh Takes Over Top Spot at VW USA from Woebcken appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2ybjF8i
via IFTTT

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Saying Goodbye to the CC V6

For all its size and its global reach, Volkswagen is still, in many ways, a deeply human company. There was, for instance, the Bugatti Veyron an ego project if ever there was one. Then the purchase of Ducati, a move most called folly. And then there was the Phaeton, the Volkswagen that most folks can’t afford. Not only were these moves all strange, I’m sure that they made VW’s accountants furious. None of them made good business sense, but they were all deeply interesting and they all are evidence of the heart that beats at the center of VW. Among these follies is the CC, a car that everyone agrees is rakishly handsome, but that no one really wanted to buy. The car couldn’t last, but the world is brighter for its having been in it. With the approach debut of the Arteon, it seems like a good time to look back on its sadly departing predecessor. The version I drove, because I live in Canada, is a V6 Wolfsburg Edition, which apparently isn’t available in the States. Nor is the V6, not as...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mitsubishi admits it lied about MPG ratings for all vehicles in Japan

Filed under: Government/Legal , Green , Mitsubishi , Fuel Efficiency , Japan Mitsubishi says its shady fuel-economy test practices may have been used on all vehicles it sells and has sold in Japan. Continue reading Mitsubishi admits it lied about MPG ratings for all vehicles in Japan Mitsubishi admits it lied about MPG ratings for all vehicles in Japan originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 11 May 2016 12:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments from Autoblog Volkswagen http://ift.tt/21X3bHv
Post a Comment
Read more

More 3.0-Liter TDI Settlement Details Expected by January 31

Volkswagen and the TDI Plaintiff’s Steering Committee were in court today for another status conference following the agreement in principal reached earlier this week. Little new information was given at the conference held before Judge Charles Breyer today, but the court ordered the parties to develop a formal settlement agreement, class action notices, and a class notice plan by January 31, 2017. For now, though, owners still don’t know how much to expect in compensation. Elizabeth Cabraser, lead Counsel for the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee reaffirmed in a statement today that the compensation would be “substantial.” The potential cost to Volkswagen is widely reported to exceed $1 billion, though, with an additional $225 million going into an environmental trust to help offset excess emissions. Buy back offers are still only expected for the oldest 20,000 of the roughly 80,000 VW Group vehicles sold in America with the 3.0-liter TDI engine. Those vehicles are mostly SUVs, like ...
Post a Comment
Read more